Wednesday, August 05, 2015

Columbus White Water Park

Hot water, big waves and loads of sun. That's the best way I can describe the Columbus White water Park. Set in the deep south of Georgia there's a new play park that's got some epic features in it.

Claire O throwing a massive flashback

I took a quick road trip south last week to join Jez and the Falling Creek Camp kids at the park for an epic day of surfing.
I caught a flight to Atlanta and then jumped on a shuttle bus that dropped me right at the park. I meet up with Jez, Joey and Joe and 12 very excited kids. They gave me a quick intro to the park and then it was time to jump on. The local news crew were there ready to film it all and capture all the fun.
The water rising by the hour turned a super friendly mid size wave into a massive powerful world class training feature. The weather was boiling hot as was the water. In an attempt to cool down you would flip into the hot bath temperature water only to resurface into the warm heat again. The only way to slightly lower in heat was to surf and use the breeze from your movement and the splashes from the wave to break the heat. We surfed the wave feature all day long into the night.

Young paddlers flying out on the wave

The Falling Creek Kids check out the other rapids too

These waves are big yet friendly

The main wave we surfed was epic and on it everything went. Helixs, blunts, pistol flips. You name it, it could be done on this wave and this wasn't the only feature at the park. There's hole and waves of various sizes scattered across the park as well as big rapids to paddle, raft and swim. As the sun set the temperature began to drop and before we knew it we were surfing in the night under the floodlights. A whole community of bodyboarders, river surfers and kayaker a came out to join us and loads of people from the town came to sit in the banks and watch.

Jez sets up for a big move

At 11pm we were finally done. The wave was still running and the lights were still on but we were officially burnt out. So we drove the short ride to our camp spot and watched the stars and shadows of the sky from our hammocks as we passed out exhausted from the day on the river.

Launching a helix

I would highly recommend this park to every freestyle kayaker out there from beginners through to Pros. It's a super fun place to learn new waves and test out the skills you already have in clean warm water and in a beautiful town. At a spectacular spot with an incredibly welcoming and friendly community.
All in all it was a fantastic road trip. I look forward to going back.